This week, the BBC have been airing a new series looking at loneliness in Britain. James Martin takes celebrities back to a street they grew up on to see who lives there now and help set up a local social network in a campaign designed to tackle the issue of loneliness in the UK.
You can watch the episodes on BBC iPlayer. Tomorrow’s episode will be touching on how animals can help combat loneliness for some people. You can watch it at 9.15am tomorrow morning (Thursday 18th December) and the final episode is on Friday at the same time in the morning.
Watch Operation Meet the Street on BBC iPlayer
More information about the benefits of the human-animal bond can be found on the SCAS website. We’ve prepared a special page to signpost you to some of the most relevant parts of our website HERE.
Announcing another 
It o ffers stroke survivors the opportunity to incorporate a companion animal into their stroke rehabilitation treatment programme. Pets As Therapy works in partnership with the lead professional Sallie Bollans of Stroke Rehab Dogs, to provide suitable volunteer PAT dog teams.
We know that some of you prefer to hold our journal in your hands and so we’ve now introduced the option to buy a subscription to the SCAS journal in hard copy format. Previously (and remaining as an option) you could buy individual copies of current and back issues but now you also have an option to receive your future copies of the SCAS journal by post as a hard copy. This will be in the form of an annual subscription.
If you have an interest in the human-animal bond and how pets can help children with autism then this free webinar from SCAS will be of interest to you.
Dr Marie-Jose Enders-Slegers, Professor of Anthrozoology at The Open University in the Netherlands, together with Professor Martens from the Maastricht University, is carrying out research into the emotions of pet animals and if pet ‘owners’ can recognize them.
Approximately one quarter of all people over retirement age own pets but SCAS research revealed that the majority of care homes and sheltered housing complexes in the UK do not have pet policies resulting in many older people having to part with their pets.